Ephesians 1:3, 2:20-22—Heavenlies in Christ

With reference to Ephesians 1:3; 2:20-22—In this chapter 13, we have two Names which are antagonistic - the blaspheming name, "whose number is six hundred three score and six", the number indicative of The Man of Sin-power; and the Name he blasphemes, which is written upon the foreheads of the 144,000-ch. 14:1. In ch. 13:6, it represents Christ and his Brethren, who, in antagonism to the Papal Blasphemer, constitute the Name of Deity. The phrases "his name," "his tabernacle," and "them that dwell in the heaven," are all synonymous with the phrase in the seventh verse, "the saints," of whom Christ is "the Head." The Deity dwells in them, and therefore they are his temple, habitation, or tabernacle; as Paul writes to the saints in Corinth, "Ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their Deity, and they shall be my people" (2 Cor. 7:16). They are the tabernacle "built upon the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets, the foundation cornerstone being Jesus Christ himself: in whom all the building fitly framed together increaseth for a Holy Name in the Lord: in whom ye are builded together for an habitation of the Deity in Spirit" (Eph. 2:20-22).

But Christ and the Saints are not only the Name and Tabernacle of the Deity, but they are also, "those who dwell in the heaven." The phrase "in the heaven" is Apocalyptically equivalent to "in the heavenlies in Christ" -en tois epouraniois en Christo (Eph. 1:3). Paul tells the saints in Ephesus, that he with them were "blessed with all spiritual blessings" in these heavenlies; in which they and Christ, though the latter is at the Right Hand of the Divine Majesty, and they in Ephesus and elsewhere, were regarded as sitting together (Eph. 1:20; 2:6). A heavenly is a constituted supernal state. It may be Divinely constituted, or constituted by human authority. We have these two kinds of heaven-ies in Paul's letter to the saints in Ephesus. Inch. 6:12, he alludes to the heavenlies constituted by human authority. The Common Version styles them "High Places;" but Paul used the same word to indicate them as that rendered "heavenly places" in ch. 1:3,20; 2:6. There is no reason why the translation should not be uniform after the manner of the original. I see that in the Italian Version this uniformity has been observed. In this, in all the places of the epistle where Paul uses en tois epouraniois, the phrase is represented by ne' luoghi celesti, in places celestial. The French Version is also uniform, rendering it dans les heux celestes. The German is less uniform than the English; and in ch. 6:12, excludes the things mentioned there from heaven altogether, and puts them unter dem Himmel, under the heaven.